Capcom Generation: 1942 Series

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Capcom enters the retrogaming field, and shooters lead the way

By IGN Staff

Maybe it's a good thing, maybe it's bad thing, but Namco and Midway have proven that putting their classic game libraries on the PlayStation is profitable and everybody's cashing in on it. While everybody and their mother does it in Japan, Capcom is probably the only other company that will release them here in the US. The company's first such classics pack contains one of Capcom's earliest game series -- 1942, 1943, and 1943 Plus. They're classic shooters, starring Allied biplanes and fighters struggling against the Japanese horder. Strange to make it that way, since the Japanese designed the game in the first place, but the series went on to become classics first in the arcade, then on the home console.

1941 is a very basic shooter with single player gameplay, pitting you against enemy Zeroes and bombers with the strangest capabilites. As one of the Founding Fathers of the shooter, it's the most protean of the bunch, with no simultaneous play or significant powerups, but classic shooting action.

The 1943s are much more frenetic, with true two-player simultaneous action, and numerous powerups and enemies. The bosses are larger, and there are parallax scrolling backgrounds, and a graphic design that's still distinctive today.

This is one of the few products Capcom will publish this year, and it's a chancy gamble. Will nostalgia for these shooters be enough to sell these older games? We'll see.